6 
LARGE FLOWERED MAGNOLIA. 
They are ever-green, thick, coriaceous, and very brilliant on the upper sur- 
face. 
The flowers are white, of an agreeable odor and seven or eight 
inches broad. They are larger than those of any other tree with which 
we are acquainted, and on detached trees they are commonly very numer- 
ous. Blooming in the midst of rich foliage, they produce so fine an effect, 
that those who have seen the tree on its native soil agree in considering 
it as one of the most beautiful productions of the vegetable kingdom. 
The fruit is a fleshy, oval cone, about 4 inches in length : it is compos- 
ed of a great number of cells, which, at the' age of maturity, open longi- 
tudinally, showing two or three seeds of a vivid red. The seeds soon 
after quit the cells, and for some days remain suspended without, each by a 
white filament attached to the bottom of its cell. The red, pulpy substance, 
which surrounds the stone, decays and leaves it naked. The stone con- 
tains a white milky kernel. In Carolina, this tree blooms in May, and its 
seeds are ripe about the beginning of October. 
The trunk is covered with a smooth, grayish bark, resembling that of 
the Beech. The wood is soft, and remarkable for its whiteness, which it 
preserves even after it is seasoned. I have been informed that it is easily 
wrought and not liable to warp, but that it is not durable when exposed to 
the weather : and for this reason, is used only in joinery in the interior of 
buildings. In trees from 15 to 18 inches in diameter, I discerned no mark 
of distinction between the sap and the heart of this wood, except a deep 
brown point, six or eight lines in diameter, in the centre of the trunk. 
The .trees from which I drew this observation had been felled about three 
weeks, and I remarked that some of the chips, after a slight fermentation, 
had changed to a rose color. I have taken notice of an analogous fact in 
the Poplar or Tulip Tree, which will be particularly mentioned in the de- 
scription of that tree. 
This magnolia grows only in cool and shady places, where the soil, com- 
posed of brown mould, is loose, deep and fertile. These tracts lie conti- 
gupus to the great swamps, which are found on the borders of the rivers 
and in the midst of the pine-barrens , or form themselves a part of these 
swamps ; but they are never seen in the long and narrow marshes, called 
branch-swamps , which traverse the barrens in every direction, and in which 
the miry soil is shallow, with a bed of white, quartzy sand beneath. In 
the situations mentioned above, it is generally accompanied by the Swamp 
Chestnut Oak, Spanish Oak, Beech, Wahoo and Devil Wood. I have uni- 
formly remarked that wherever the Big Laurel grows it is accompanied by 
the Umbrella Tree, but that the Umbrella Tree, which endures an intense 
degree of cold, is not always accompanied by the Big Laurel. 
The seeds become rancid less speedily than those of other species of 
Magnolia ; they may be kept several months before they are sown. This 
